


converge

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Episode: s01e06 FZZT, F/M, Thor: The Dark World
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-08-30 17:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8541352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: Jemma and Ward's fall doesn't land them quite where they expect it to.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a fic I've wanted to write for a _while_. Rather than keep fiddling with false starts that would, if they could get anywhere, lead to an absurdly long oneshot, I'm going the drabble-chapter route. We'll see how it goes, but fair warning there could be a lot of time between updates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a first sentence prompt given by an anon over on tumblr. Thanks, anon, for helping me finally get this thing started.

The heat of the fire can barely thaw the frozen feeling in her fingers. It’s not _really_ cold. She knows it’s not because Ward’s walking around in his t-shirt with no trouble at all. But that doesn’t change the fact that _Jemma’s_ cold. She can feel the warmth of the sun overhead and the fire in front of her, but none of it seems to penetrate deep enough to do her any real good.

“You don’t look okay,” Ward says. It’s been several minutes since she told him she was fine, but as he’s been busy folding up the parachute and scouting their surroundings, she doesn’t blame the delay. Likely he was even hoping she would recover if only he left her alone.

“I think there’s been some damage to my circulatory system,” she says, attempting to keep her voice steady. “My heart’s going very fast.”

He’s beside her in a second, kneeling in the dirt at her side and laying first two of his fingers over her pulse and then his whole hand over her chest.

He’s warm. It’s lovely. She sways towards him without meaning to as the heat from his palm suffuses her ribcage.

“Hey,” he soothes. His free hand slips under the reflective blanket wrapped around her shoulders and runs steady strokes over her back.

She stares into the fire as his heat seeps into her skin. As far as she knows, he’s had more physical contact with her just today than with any other member of the team in all the months they’ve been together. And just a few hours ago she was thinking she would never touch another human being again. It would be humorous if it wasn’t all so dire. Ward holding her in the air was one thing, but holding her to comfort her? Either things are very bad or he was _very_ worried - or both.

Her heart is slowing and it’s becoming easier to move her fingers. She curls them into Ward’s shirt and succeeds better than when she tired to open the emergency kit that’s standard inside all SHIELD parachutes.

“Any idea where we are?” she asks, attempting a hopeful tone she doesn’t truly feel. From her memory of events, there’s no way they can be here - wherever here is. Last she remembers, Ward was holding her after administering the antiserum and they were falling safely but steadily towards the Atlantic Ocean without a bit of land in sight. They certainly shouldn’t be in the middle of a _forest_.

He lets her sit up on her own again but doesn’t move away. “’Fraid not.” His hands hover as though he expects to have to catch her suddenly. “You feeling better?”

She nods. She’s still feeling raw and colder than she should with the fire close enough to touch, but her heart’s no longer pounding and she can feel her fingers and toes again. “What happened?”

He turns his attention back to their surroundings but answers her with a shrug. “Not sure. We were falling towards the ocean and then … we weren’t.”

“That’s it?” There has to be more to it than that.

“Pretty much. One minute I’m looking down at water, the next it’s all green everywhere.”

“I don’t suppose you brought your cell phone along?” Hers is in the lab as she didn’t want her condition to damage it. Gingerly, she attempts to stand to take a look around for herself - not that she expects to be able to look any farther than the edges of the clearing Ward managed to steer them towards - only to be stopped by a raised hand. Ward is watching the tree line.

“Yeah,” he says, voice deceptively calm while he wraps a hand around the gun in his waistband. As he dove rather unexpectedly from the Bus, it’s the standard issue pistol from the emergency kit, not the night-night gun he’s taken to carrying as his sidearm while in the field, and for some reason the sight of it heightens her fear of whatever’s lurking among the trees. “But you kinda fried it.”

“Sorry,” she says because it seems the thing to say.

“Not your fault. How’d you do it, anyway? Find the cure?”

He knows. He and all the rest of the team watched while she and Fitz worked over the Chitauri helmet and the both of them babble so much that he must know they used the dead soldier’s immunity to cure her. Which means he can only be asking to keep her talking, make it seem as though they’re not at all distracted by noises or shadows or whatever it is that’s grabbed Ward’s attention.

“Th- th- the helmet,” she says while trying to reason that any wild animal is more afraid of them than they are of it and that any human isn’t going to be expecting a highly trained SHIELD specialist. “It contained DNA from the Chitauri it was pillaged from.”

“ _Pillaged?_ ” Ward asks, throwing her a half-grin. Or a full-grin, but she only sees half of it, so it’s all the same.

“Stolen, salvaged, whatever. The point is, it had some of his DNA and, as he was capable of going about his daily life of violently attacking unsuspecting metropolises despite being infected with the virus, it stood to reason the cure lied in him. Which it did.”

Ward eases closer to the trees, each footfall careful so as not to break any twigs or crush any leaves. “I thought the way it worked was if he survived it and developed an immunity. If he was still carrying the virus, wouldn’t he have still been infected?”

“Not necessarily, it’s possible- _Ward_.” She cuts off as a hand comes to rest over her collarbone and a knife settles a few dangerous inches above it.

Ward spins, bringing up his gun. “Drop it,” he orders calmly.

“No,” the man holding Jemma says. His knife tips away - not far enough to put her out of danger, but enough to bring to Ward’s attention the two men stepping out of the trees behind him. “You drop it.”

Ward mutters a curse that is either too low to hear clearly or in a language Jemma isn’t familiar with. Either way, she’s in complete agreement. He drops his gun to the grass and lifts his arms. “Let her go. She’s not a threat.”

“We’ll decide that,” the larger of the two men says. He uses the handle of a battleaxe to force Ward to his knees while his companion snatches up the gun. The weapon doesn’t seem so out of place given that these men look to have stepped out of a Renaissance Fair.

Perhaps they’re closer to civilization than they thought. Perhaps they’ll be safely in contact with SHIELD just as soon as Ward gets the upper hand.

“While I would love to trust so pretty a face,” the man holding Jemma says while pulling her arms behind her back to wrap a cord around them (“Hey! Watch it!” Ward snaps), “I am far too familiar with the Lady Sif to underestimate one.”

Across the clearing, Ward is being similarly restrained while the man who took his gun stamps out their fire and goes about gathering their things. It appears they’re leaving. Ward tears his eyes away from her captor only briefly to meet hers. There’s reassurance there, a promise that he’ll get them out of this the same way he saved her from the fall. She has to believe him. It can’t be that she escaped certain death only to meet her end not even an hour later.

“Who are you?” she asks as the knots tighten.

“I-” Jemma’s captor draws out the word with some flair as he steps around her; she thinks it’s so that she has a better view of his gallant bow- “am Fandral - the dashing - you may have heard of me.” He winks at her. He _definitely_ wanted her to see him. “My compatriots are Hogun the Grim-” the man folding up her fallen blanket pauses to give her a solemn nod- “and Volstagg the Valiant.” The man still hovering over Grant, axe at the ready, smiles kindly. “And we are the Warriors Three of Asgard.”

Jemma and Ward’s eyes meet.

“Asgard?” she asks.

“As in _Thor_?” he adds.

Frandral rolls his eyes. “Everyone’s always heard of Thor.”

“He _is_ the prince,” Volstagg says and that starts a whole debate about daring deeds and bardic praise. Jemma doesn’t hear much of it and she doubts Ward does either. Asgard means aliens and, after the events of the last few days, Jemma can safely say the entire team has had quite enough of them for a while.

“What are you doing here?” Ward asks, cutting into the ongoing discussion of whose name is most renowned.

The three, who have gathered around the remains of the fire, turn to look at him.

“Adventuring,” Volstagg says.

“Bringing peace to the Nine Realms,” Hogun says.

“Cleaning up Thor’s mess,” Fandral says.

Jemma joins them in looking to Ward. “Was there another invasion?”

He shrugs awkwardly with his hands bound behind his back.

“We would’ve heard-” she protests, but he cuts her off.

“Do you really think AC would’ve taken a call about another New York while you were _dying_?” he asks, borrowing Skye’s nickname for Coulson. That alone throws her off - and then she realizes that any friends of Thor’s aren’t to know Coulson’s alive - so that she doesn’t realize the rest of what he said until Hogun is kneeling in front of her.

“You were dying?” His eyes travel over her, looking for some sign of injury.

“From a disease,” she says, “one the Chitauri left on Earth.”

“Midgard?” Fandral asks. “How did you get all the way out here from Midgard?”

“What’s Midgard?” Ward asks.

“Another world,” Volstagg says. “The realm of Jane Foster and the Avengers.”

“And we’re … not … there?” Ward asks slowly.

“No,” Hogun says, his voice heavy, “you are not.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

The mortal woman has a backbone of steel and does not hesitate to admonish the prisoners the moment they emerge from Heimdall’s observatory. “Stop pulling at those restraints! You’ll injure yourself and who knows what sort of contagions might be floating around in the prison.” Some of that amusing fire of hers dims by the end, her words catching up with her.

Hogun meets Volstagg and Fandral’s eyes as she moves closer to her companion. She is stronger than she appears. It took some time to identify the illness which so nearly took her life, but he knows it now to be the Storm Sickness. It has long been a scourge upon the Nine Realms and once nearly felled Thor himself. She is lucky to be alive.

But she is not unmarked by what very nearly occurred. He had wondered if it might not be some other fear or the result of some abuse, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that the fear which so often tempers her curiosity is a recent development. She was fearful of being examined by his sister at first - more for his sister’s sake than her own, he thinks - and cringed away from every touch but the other mortal’s. As time went on however and in their journey she saw more of his world, more of his people, she would occasionally reach out for this plant or that bit of rubble only to pull back at the last moment.

It is not her nature to be afraid; she has learned to be.

“Eir,” Volstagg says. Frandral nods, and Hogun says, “To Eir.”

He mounts his horse, held at the ready by a nearby page. There are five all told, though Thor and Sif did not return to aid in the transport of prisoners.

“For the knight and lady, milord,” the page says with a hasty bow in the mortals’ direction.

Fandral barks out a laugh while swinging a leg over his own mount. “Heimdall must have seen you. Do you know how to ride, little mortals?”

Grant Ward bristles as he has at every such comment Fandral has made. Soon he will either realize his reactions only encourage more or he will put an end to the matter with fisticuffs. Volstagg has already laid money on the former and Hogun looks forward to taking it from him.

“I do,” Grant Ward says, mounting the nearest horse. His tone says that only he does and he looks back as soon as he is settled, but Hogun has already extended his hand to Jemma Simmons.

“Milady?”

She hesitates, much as he expected.

“I swear to you, Lady of SHIELD, if I carry any illness that might endanger you, Eir will find it out before you even feel its effects.”

She rolls her eyes to the stars, but he supposes the motion is more for herself than for him. “For goodness’ sakes, I’ve been around the lot of you long enough it’s too late to worry.” She takes his hand and he pulls her up in front of him. “Fandral held me at _knifepoint_ so the harm’s already been done.”

“I assure you,” Fandral says, spurring his steed - and the prisoners - forward, “it would have pained me greatly to cut such a lovely throat.”

“But you would’ve done it,” Grant Ward mutters.

Hogun urges his steed alongside his. “We go to the Healing House. It is not far, but keep close.”

There is a biting retort in Grant Ward’s eyes, but his only response is a nod.

Jemma Simmons sits stiff and clinging against him through the ride; when finally he eases her down into Grant Ward’s waiting arms, the horse is as pleased as she for it to be over with.

“What is this?” Eir herself steps into the courtyard, flanked by no fewer than three of her acolytes. She ignores their quiet bids for her attention, instead narrowing her eyes at the mortals. “Prisoners?”

“This is Sir Grant Ward and Lady Jemma Simmons of Midgard. We brought them with us from Vanaheim in hopes you might examine the lady. The day before last she was struck by the Storm Sickness.”

More than one of the acolytes moves back and Eir herself stiffens her spine. “The Storm Sickness on Vanaheim? Why was I not informed? How many men-”

“Not Vanaheim,” Hogun interrupts respectfully. “Midgard.”

Her eyes narrow but in a moment her face clears. “The Convergence.”

He nods. They have assumed its coming to be the cause of the mortals’ arrival. These two will not be the last to find themselves far from home in the coming days.

Eir sweeps the lady with a critical glance. “The day before last?”

He understands her confusion. When Thor suffered under the disease’s sway, he was unable to move within the week. A mortal would be dead in a matter of hours.

“We found a cure,” Jemma Simmons says. “Or I’m fairly certain we did. It was all rather last minute and I didn’t have time to look at any of the results or even do more than the one test-” She halts, looking sharply up to Grant Ward, who rubs one soothing hand over her shoulder and patiently says, “She’s not dead, so it did something, but she still pulsed and floated for a while, so we’d like to know if she’s really okay.”

“And if he is,” she adds hastily. “He was with me when … when it ran its course.”

“All right,” Eir says. She descends the steps without her entourage. “The east tower,” she directs, leading the way. She does not explain to the mortals that the east tower of the Healing House is used only to sanction off the deathly ill so that they will not infect others, and Hogun, as is his want, keeps his tongue. With luck, its use now will be overly cautious.

 

* * *

 

 

It is. Hogun can see it the moment the soul forge is activated and see it more in the easing lines of Eir’s face. There is no sign of the lightning in Jemma Simmons’ veins.

“I’m assuming this is safe?” Grant Ward asks, eyeing the soul impression.

“It’s a quantum field generator.”

Eir pauses her examination to smile at her patient. “It is a soul forge, but you are the second person today to call it a ‘quantum field generator.’”

“Who was the first?”

“The lady Jane Foster, also of Midgard.”

“What!” Jemma Simmons sits up so swiftly the soul forge struggles to follow her movements. “Jane Foster? _Doctor_ Jane Foster? Of the Foster Theory?”

Eir smiles, plainly amused. “I couldn’t say. However Thor brought her…”

“ _No_.”

A half-uttered exclamation dies on Jemma Simmons’ lips. Grant Ward has one had on her leg, holding her to the bed.

“Ward-”

“No, Simmons. You’re not gonna go running off on some alien planet to look for a woman you’re _not even allowed to talk to_.”

“I’m not allowed to talk to Thor. I think the fact I’ve spent the last few hours with three of his friends makes any rule beyond that moot, don’t you?”

Hogun winces in sympathy as the hand on her leg tightens.

“You’re not going.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but is spoken over.

“Simmons! The only thing you’re gonna do is lay back down and let this nice doctor finish examining you. Okay?”

“Stop _yelling_ at me,” she says, her voice cracking. “You’ve been yelling at me all day to stay away from the prisoners and not touch anything alien - as if I can help it where we are! As if- as if I _knew_ and I- I can’t-”

Eir has moved back, subtly joining Hogun in the shadows. As Jemma Simmons’ lip quivers, Grant Ward lets out a foul curse. He drags her off the bed and into his arms, allowing her to bury her head in his shoulder. Her hands must be digging painfully into his back but he gives no sign. All he says is, “If you ever tell Skye about this, I’ll have your field clearance revoked.”

It earns him a soggy laugh.

 


End file.
